ChildFund Quickly Adopts Social Media, Next Step is Fundraising Online

The responses of 1,295 nonprofit executives show that 91 percent raise money online, but only 58 percent of those nonprofits use social media for fundraising. The article appeared in NPT Instant Fundraising, a publication of The NonProfit Times.

Sharing their story, building a community, public relations, and donor engagement/retention — not raising funds — were listed as the nonprofits’ top reasons for engaging in social media.

ChildFund International trends with the results. When we changed our name in July to one that reflected our global scope and our work as part of the ChildFund Alliance, we knew we had to familiarize people with our new name and help others connect the new name to the old one.

We’ve done a decent job of raising awareness through Facebook, Twitter and blogs. We’re hearing from you that you believe in the work that we do and that it feels good to make a difference in the lives of children. Many of you have further shared that message for us through your social networks.

One of the survey findings was that social media isn’t a part of most nonprofit organizations’ everyday activities. At ChildFund, it is. We have both a community manager and a director of e-Philanthropy. Those aren’t titles just to impress. They’re intended to send a message: Our community of supporters is crucial to helping children in the countries where we work. And we plan to continuously seek more contributions through online platforms.

In the coming weeks, we’re planning to use our social media platforms to raise awareness of our gift catalog, a unique way to help a child. Each gift you choose will be used exactly as described in the catalog. The gifts come in all shapes and sizes — and price ranges — and are a great way to become more familiar with the work ChildFund does. We hope that many of you will take advantage of this opportunity to purchase an item and change the life of a child.

ChildFund recently launched our Causes page on Facebook and will be updating that regularly.

We know that the more we can connect you directly to the impact we have on children’s lives, the more you will want to participate. Whether that takes the form of sharing our message, contributing or both. We want to continue the conversation and continue making a difference in the lives of deprived, excluded and vulnerable children.